Latitude Financial confirms cyber attack ‘remains active’

Latitude Financial has advised that the cyber-attack it detected last week remains active. The cyber attack has already impacted approximately 330,000 customers and merchant partners including Apple, Barbeques Galore, JB Hi-Fi and The Good Guys.

“We recognise the distress to our customers caused by the theft of their personal information and we are committed to transparently updating our customers, partners, employees and the broader community,” Latitude Financial said in a statement.

Latitude has engaged leading external cyber security experts, the Australian Cyber Security Centre, the Australian Federal Police for an investigation and other relevant government agencies. 

“We have taken the prudent action of isolating some of our technology platforms which means that we are currently not onboarding new customers,” the statement continued.

“Because the attack remains active, we have taken our platforms offline and are unable to service our customers and merchant partners. We cannot restore this capability immediately; however we are working to do so gradually over the coming days and ask our customers for their continued patience.

“Our restoration of these services is aligned to our forensic review. In conjunction with our cyber-security experts, we are continuing our forensic review of our IT platforms to identify the full extent of the theft of customer information as a result of the attack on Latitude.”

Latitude has started contacting customers and applicants who have so far been impacted by this criminal act, having already written to all customers on Thursday 16 March to alert them to the cyber-attack.

“Latitude will confirm to each impacted customer and applicant what personal information has been stolen, what we are doing to support them and what additional steps customers should consider taking to further protect their information. This includes Latitude working with relevant agencies to replace identification documents, where necessary, at no cost to our customers,” the statement said.

Latitude has established dedicated contact centres for impacted customers in Australia and New Zealand to answer queries, as well as a dedicated help page to keep customers and partners fully informed of developments.